A lot of people, especially Repugnantcans, get their drawers in a wad over the mere mention of the word socialism, equating it – incorrectly – with communism. The two terms are not interchangeable.
I suppose it’s okay to oppose socialism so long as you do not partake in police and fire protection, street construction and repair, garbage pickup, municipal and community water and gas systems, and a few other services that we take for granted – like Social Security and Medicare. (Speaking of which, if you’re so opposed to socialism, tell me what you did with your pandemic stimulus checks.)
But let’s take the concept a bit further and see how socialism can apply to big business, and I mean BIG business.
But first, let’s pretend for a moment that your home is destroyed by a storm or by fire and you find that you’re underinsured or worse, uninsured – as might be the case with rising water and you don’t have flood insurance, which is precisely what happened to thousands of people in the 2016 flood (yes, I was one of those).
Well, I shouldn’t be expected to have to foot the bill to rebuild my home, should I? I mean, my home was already paid for and I opted not to carry flood insurance because we were on high ground (we thought) and the area had never flooded. But surprise, someone forgot to tell Mother Nature.
But not to worry. Someone will take care of me and I won’t have to pay to rebuild, right?
Well, not quite. At the tender age of 73, I found myself with a brand-new home mortgage on a home I’d already paid for once. Damn! Someone should’ve taken care of my problems that I failed to anticipate.
You see, it just doesn’t work that way.
Unless you’re a big utility company like Entergy.
Entergy, which serves about 1.1 million customers in 58 Louisiana parishes, including most of south Louisiana, was granted a rate increase by the Louisiana Public Service Commission (PSC) last year to help the company pay for a $3.2 billion restoration plan for Entergy.
That was to help Entergy recover from the devastation of Hurricane Ida back in 2021 and the rate increase came to a surcharge of about $25 per month for the average Louisiana Entergy customer. Democrat Foster Campbell cast the lone negative vote on the rate increase.
At the time PSC members demanded to know if Entergy planned to use any of its own money to help cover the cost of hurricane damages and Entergy CEO Leo Denault politely said no, but thanks for asking.
That rate increase came on the heels of Entergy’s bestowing an additional $4 million in compensation for Denault, bringing his salary to $16 million per year. It also followed the $1.2 billion in DIVIDENDS the company paid to its shareholders.
Fast forward to today (Jan. 19). The PSC approved Entergy’s plan to make its customers in Louisiana pony up another $1.4 BILLION to finance improvements to its grid and to repair hurricane damage.
Wait. What? Entergy had the nerve to come back and ask for even more help from its customers to pay for the company’s reluctance to place its service lines underground years ago as a means of avoiding hurricane damage? or of not carrying enough insurance coverage to take care of catastrophic losses?
What about that taco stand down the street? The storm blew the structure apart so shouldn’t customers pay to rebuild? No? I don’t understand. What about all those folks whose vehicles were paid for and they dropped their collision coverage because of Louisiana’s high insurance premiums? Shouldn’t someone pay to get them another car or truck after they were lost in the 2016 flood or when a tree fell on it? No?
But Entergy…I mean, as a customer of Entergy, I now am expected to…
Well, you get the picture. Entergy obviously failed to carry sufficient excess coverage to insure its loses from Ida so naturally, you and I will get the bill which will amount to about an additional $5.50 per month for the next 23 years. That’s on top of the previous bump of about $25 over 15 years.
But wait, Entergy didn’t come away completely off the hook, thanks to the tenacious negotiations (sarcasm) of Repugnantcan PSC member Craig Greene of Baton Rouge who this time held Entergy’s feet to the fire for a whopping $180 million concession by cutting that much from Entergy’s proposed rate increase. Let’s see, $180 million out of $1.4 billion…12.9 percent of the total, leaving consumers holding the bag for 87.1 percent of the cost.
Or, if you combine the two rate increases approved in the past year, you have Entergy chipping in $180 million out of a total $4.6 billion rate increase, or a more modest 3.9 percent with you pitching in the remaining 94.1 percent.
Not a bad deal for Entergy but consumer will need a big tube of KY for this one.
It also takes the edge off that REBATE Entergy has been ordered to pay its customers in Louisiana and Arkansas.
This time the rate hike was approved by a thinner 3-2 vote along party lines. You see, that last increase may have cost one member his job when Democrat Davante Lewis of Baton Rouge defeated Democratic incumbent Lambert Boissiere, who voted for he previous rate hike. Davante joined Campbell in voting against the latest increase.
So, there you have it, folks. The Repugnantcans voted in lock step in favor for what looks an awful lot like socialism to me to benefit Entergy and for rock solid capitalism for the consumers. Kinda brings a lump to your throat and a tear to your eye, doesn’t it?
Louisiana Voice 
Excellent presentation. As a resident of Arkansas, I will be sending this article to my Arkansas Public Service Commissioner. Or whatever the correct title may be.
Lambert Boissiere is a Democrat you buffoon…
You are correct. He was endorsed by Gov. Edwards. Oh, and if I’m such a buffoon, why do you waste your time reading my posts?
“Republicans” will tell you it’s only socialism when government provides assistance to individuals in need because helping people in need makes them lazy, entitled, and dependent. Businesses on the other hand are the saviors of society because they create so many fabulous jobs and pay workers so much fabulous money no one should need any damn government assistance at all and if they do it’s their own damn fault. When you give some freebies to business, you see, you’re really helping out regular folks like you and me. So bailing out wealthy businessmen and their wealthy businesses is actually wholesome American capitalism. It’s only when you help people in need that it becomes evil socialism.
👍🎯
The fact that you’re still talking about Repugnantcans (as you call them) tells me you still don’t get it. There is a uniparty that hates us. You are being used as a pawn to divide us.
Nah, not really
As I’ve said here many times in the past, I am a recovering Repugnantcan, so I do get it. I spent more than 35 years in the party because I thought it best represented the philosophy and ideals of this country. Sadly, I came to the conclusion during the Jindal administration that just wasn’t so. While I am not totally enamored with the Democrats (I still can’t believe Biden allowed himself to be caught with classified documents in his home and office after the debacle at Mar a Lago), but of the two parties, there’s no question which one at least knows and attempts to address what concerns working Americans while the other is far more concerned with keeping corporations and the wealthy 1% happy.
That’s what I get, Larry.
You’re obviously of a superior intellect so why don’t you enlighten us on your solutions? Seriously, I’d love to hear them without your having to fall back on name-calling. I don’t really see how that resolves any issues. So please, tell me how you’d do it.
“The study of psychology teaches us that when someone resorts to name calling, it usually speaks to feelings of inferiority and a feeling of inadequacy of the person doing the name calling. People stoop to the process of name calling when they feel lesser and need to make themselves feel more powerful.”
Your absolutely correct Clifford. Case in point is the author of this article. “A lesson in socialism from Repugnantcans on PSC: Entergy consumers will foot the bill for its lack of storm preparation”. He starts off his article by calling Republicans “Repugnant”, if I am deciphering his gibberish correctly. How does that saying go, those who live in glass houses shouldn’t cast stones. Why would he expect a conversation without name-calling when he lowered himself to name-calling an entire group first? Since you apparently like defining things, define hypocrite for me. After that Cliff, read this definition very closely, “Internet troll, slang, an internet troll is a person who posts or makes inflammatory, insincere, digressive, [1] extraneous, or off-topic messages online (such as in social media, a newsgroup, a forum, a chat room, an online video game), or in real life, with the intent of provoking others into displaying emotional responses, [2] or manipulating others’ perception. The behavior is typically for the troll’s amusement, or to achieve a specific result such as disrupting a rival’s online activities or purposefully causing confusion or harm to other users online.” In simple terms even a simple minded mental slug like you can understand, thanks for being my dancing circus monkey Corky…
As a general rule of thumb I don’t engage people who hide behind anonymous profiles. If you don’t have the courage to use your real (or full) name you don’t have anything to say worth listening to. “Ben” is a good example. No argument against your position and no argument in favor of another. Just a lot of one-way name-calling which allows him to maintain his delusion he is of “superior intellect.”
It would be interesting to find out the tax implications of the “improvements” paid for by these increases. I’m sure ENTERGY will capitalize said improvements, depreciate same over the expectant life of the assets, creating negative cash flow for ENTERGY.
Stated simply, much of the cost of these improvements paid for by their customers will flow back to ENTERGY over some time via depreciation.
Can’t help but wonder if such was factored into the increased granted Entergy.
No more taxes…. less government…..Woody Jenkins admitting he called Trumps Chief of deniers, to promote his plan via a law review article from Loyola Law confirming Woody’s view that all elections are rigged. Two of my dear friends Repugs, have quoted Fox news about Hunter Biden receiving 190K for a salary in corrupt Ukraine, doing utility work???? Yet not a word about Denault’s 14 or 16 Million!!
thanks to Commissioner Foster Campbell for voting no. Great article, trying to keep learning, no problem with loving, got another rescue dog. ron thompson
I was pointed to this blog due to a post from Ronnie Jones, which was excellent. However if this is your normal material, I’ll kindly go back to my side of the world.
Clifford, as a student of psychology, myself, I agree your argument is certainly reasonable and the definition Ben provided also hits the mark. Based on my experience, I guess I see it with a subtle difference. In the old days, when I used to try to reason with people I believed were seriously wrong about something and provided evidence to support my side, name-calling was the default for ending the discussion (if it could ever have actually been such) rather than offering concrete counterpoints to the evidence. In other words, the troll doesn’t want to acknowledge that he has no case, so he quits, but scores points in his mind via unrelated insults. When attacked personally by somebody you never even met and when the attack has nothing to do with the subject at hand, there is nowhere to go for either party. Maybe the trolls know this – or maybe the name-calling is just a knee jerk response to frustration and has no depth whatsoever.